A new Jamaican air freight business that begins operations in June says it’s looking to expand throughout the Caribbean.
This would include services to the Cayman Islands, according to Chief Operating Officer Kamal Clarke of all-cargo airline Exec Direct Aviation.
“We would like to be a regional carrier with our base in Kingston, passing everything through that hub to Cayman, connecting with Curacao, Nassau. We would like to become a major regional player in the cargo market. Right now we are talking with many of the islands and have communicated the routes that we would like to operate but of course we need the approval by our local authority in Jamaica and then the counter authority [in each territory],” Mr. Clarke told the Compass.
C
argo aircraft
The company owns a Saab 340A cargo aircraft, which is capable of transporting 8,000 pounds of cargo for
approximately 600 miles. Exec Direct Aviation received certification to begin operations from the Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority on 21 April, but the idea went back a little longer than that, explained the COO.
“I used to be in Turks & Caicos flying passenger airplanes and we found there was a demand for Jamaican products there but no real way to get them there. People always asked me to bring back stuff for them and it struck me that it could be a viable business.
“With Air Jamaica reducing capacity on all the routes there was an opportunity for flying freight around the region,” he added.
Curacao Free Zone
The first route to be targeted is between Jamaica and Curacao
, which was an obvious choice, explained Mr. Clarke.
“Air Jamaica pulled out of Curacao, which was one of their bigger cargo routes. In Curacao there is a free zone and a lot of higglers [informal commercial importers and small scale distributors] used that route to buy their apparel and so on to bring back to Jamaica and sell it. So there was definitely a market there. The goods came from all over the place including Asia. And being a free zone, Curacao has the goods much cheaper than getting it out of the United States.
“The Western Caribbean has lacked frequent, reliable, dedicated intra-island air cargo service for quite some time. We are targeting the micro business sector, large corporations in the Caribbean and we are hoping to play a major role in assisting exporters in the expansion of their markets to places such as Haiti and other islands within the region.”
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